


Shallura Week Collection

by andtheblueberrymuffins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/M, Individual warnings are included for each chapter, Season/Series 01 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andtheblueberrymuffins/pseuds/andtheblueberrymuffins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This gathers all my work for Shallura week together in one place, cleaned up a little from the initial postings. You can read to find:</p>
<p>1: Fluffy accidental voyeurism, featuring Pidge.<br/>2: A Star Trek AU.<br/>3: In universe sci-fi/horror and an exploration of how far Allura would go for Shiro.<br/>4: Some fluffy romance instigated by alien pollen.<br/>5: A fic set far in the future, after they return to Earth with an established relationship.<br/>6: Some silliness that involves fighting dragons.</p>
<p>All chapters are stand-alone fics and I've included individual warnings. Most are just fine, but a few feature some violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stolen Moments

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> Welcome to the 1st fic, I guess? It's short and features Pidge walking in on something she shouldn't.

Pidge stayed up too late (again) but it wasn’t like that was her fault, or anything. They retrieved so much information from the Galra systems before their disastrous trip through the wormhole and all of it had just sat there, going to waste, while the Paladins had struggled to return to the city. Pidge ended up being one of the last back – only Lance took longer – and she threw herself into sorting out all the data as soon as she’d had a good night’s sleep and a solid meal.

But the backlog still seemed insurmountable and demanded more and more of her time.

She yawned, knuckling at her eyes as she strolled slowly through the quiet corridors back to her quarters. Everyone else slept. Just as well. They’d probably all fuss if they realized she’d stayed up so late again, but at that moment it felt like she alone had control of the city, that she could go anywhere and do anything and—

Soft voices echoed from up ahead.

Pidge froze in place, not frightened – she recognized Allura’s voice, even soft and far away – but concerned about being caught. She wanted to avoid Allura’s disappointed eyes. But the voices (Was that Shiro, too?) drew no closer. They must have been standing in place. What were they doing up at this time of night? Nothing important waited down that hall. It just led to their quarters.

Curiosity prickled at Pidge’s heels and led her forward. She crept along with her back against the wall, straining her ears to hear more of their conversation, but they’d stopped speaking. Maybe they’d finished the conversation and moved on. Maybe one of them moved towards her right now, about to turn the corner and—

Pidge reached the corner, peered around, and almost exclaimed in shock.

She’d found Shiro and Allura, all right. And, in a way, she guessed they had finished talking. They stood in front of one of the big windows in the city, star light illuminating them and their, well, their embrace.

They stood sideways to Pidge, with no space between them. Shiro’s eyes were shut and his artificial hand gripped at Allura’s hip, with barely enough pressure to wrinkle the fabric. He threaded the fingers of his other hand back through her thick hair, cupping the curve of her head while Allura wrapped an arm around his back and tilted her face up towards his, her lashes fluttering against her stained cheeks.

They kissed softly. And thoroughly. And some little voice in the back of Pidge’s head gibbered desperately but she brain seemed disconnected from her legs. She held her breath and stared, wide-eyed, shocked, and then plagued by the feeling that she shouldn’t have been.

As she watched (spied, she spied on them), Shiro pulled back, his mouth reddened and his eyes dark. His voice had gone low and quiet when he said, “Are you sure – do you really want…?” He grimaced and made a half-aborted gesture at either himself of the still-minimal space between them.

Allura curled her arm up and grabbed the front of his shirt, her long fingers clenched in the fabric as she pulled him back close. She spoke right against his mouth, “I’m absolutely sure.” And she shifted her weight backwards, dragging him along easily, until one of her shoulders pressed against the window.

They fell back together, holding more desperately this time and when Allura shifting her hips, Shiro made a dark, hungry sound and whatever ice it was that had held Pidge immobile abruptly melted.

She slammed her palms over her eyes and pivoted on her heel, scurrying down the hall by memory. Her cheeks burned hot under her hands. She needed to tell – but she couldn’t. She had no right. She’d seen something not meant for her and wished, now, that she’d gone to bed earlier, with everyone else.

She decided to go look at some more of that data.


	2. The Final Frontier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The captain stood when Shiro entered and adjusted her uniform. It still looked too crisp, brand-new. The war had thrown them all into positions they hadn’t anticipated. She said, “Welcome aboard, Commander. I’m glad you joined us so quickly, it’ll give you time to get familiar with the ship before we leave space dock.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've reached the 2nd fic and it's a Star Trek AU! Featuring Captain Allura, the Borg, and just general bad times for Shiro. This one contains a fair bit of violence. Written for the 'Bridges' prompt.

Shiro never fell asleep the night before he was scheduled to report for his new duty assignment, but that was alright, he rarely slept through an entire night, anyway. Come the morning he packed his meager possessions and headed down to the transporter room, ready to be off the ship that had carried him out to the space dock that held the fine ship Arus.

He exchanged goodbyes with the transporter tech, he knew he did, but afterwards he couldn’t remember her face. The walk through the space station passed in a blur. He half expected to arrive at the Arus’s dock and find the ship already launched.

But he needn’t have worried; the ship remained, waiting for him, space-docked to take on crew and supplies for its new mission out on the front lines of the war. Shiro braced a hand against one of the station’s viewports and stared at his new ship, taking in the smooth lines of the Arus’s warp nacelles, her phaser banks and torpedo bays….

“Hey!” A loud voice startled him and he smothered a flinch, turning to look at the lieutenant who bounded up beside him. “Would you happen to be Commander Shirogane?” When Shiro nodded the lieutenant beamed and stuck out a hand. “Well, good to meet you! You can call me Lance. I’ll be your helmsman on our fine ship.” He gestured out the viewport. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of me, but I’m the best pilot in the fleet. The Captain sent me to escort you aboard. She’s waiting for you in her ready room, wanted to talk about the mission, I guess.” Lance continued to chatter as they walked across to the Arus, before a crewman in engineering yellow shouted for him and he turned quickly to ask, “Hey, you know the way from here, right?”

“I can find my way,” Shiro assured him and walked to the nearest turbo lift, leaving the lieutenants to their excited discussion of the ship’s features.

Crew members wandered around the corridors, hauling luggage or just examining their new ship. Shiro nodded to those who looked at him, making his way to the bridge and the captain’s ready room, ignoring the twist of nerves in his gut to reach out and pass his hand across the sensor to let her know he’d arrived.

“Enter,” she called a moment later, and the doors opened for him, revealing a good sized room, full of large windows and a gigantic table. Shiro stepped through the doors quickly and got his first look at Captain Allura. He hadn’t expected her to look like a Starfleet captain. After all, she was young, only his age, and he’d seen pictures of her from her Academy days, when she wore her pale hair in long, tangling curls and smiled freely.

Now she wore the strands of her hair pinned up. She still smiled, but the expression looked reserved when viewed above the high-neckline of her uniform. She stood when Shiro entered and adjusted her uniform. It still looked too crisp, brand-new. The war had thrown them all into positions they hadn’t anticipated. She said, “Welcome aboard, Commander. I’m glad you joined us so quickly, it’ll give you time to get familiar with the ship before we leave space dock.”

Shiro made all the right sounds back, about how glad he felt to be aboard, leaving out that he’d come so early because he worried that given enough time she’d change her mind about him. The meeting passed in a rush and his thoughts guttered to a standstill when she moved to shake his hand. She didn’t even hesitate when faced with the abnormal coolness of the alien limb and something in his chest squeezed even tighter at the small kindness. The rush of emotion prompted him to blurt into her smile, “Ma’am, can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” she said, releasing his hand with a small frown. “You can always speak with me freely.”

She said it like she meant it and it spurred him on. He asked the question that had dug at him since he’d received his reporting orders, “Why’d you choose me?” Her smile froze, just for a moment, and her strangely hued eyes widened. He rushed ahead, though he feared he should have never broached the subject at all, “What I mean is, after what happened….” He didn’t go into what he meant. They both knew about his record, about the destruction of his last ship, his capture by the Borg, the torture, and his eventual escape, desperate and only remembered in fits and snatches.

He’d never expected to survive the ordeal, but he had. And then he’d never expected to recover from what they did to him, but he had. Mostly. Except for the dreams, his arm, and all the scars that not even Starfleet medical could soothe away. And then… “I never thought I’d serve on a Federation ship again,” he said, quietly. “And I’m grateful you selected me, and I swear to you that I’ll be the best first officer you could ask for, but….” He wished she’d stop looking at him like she could see into his thoughts. At least he saw no pity in her eyes. “But why me, ma’am?”

Allura looked at him softly, raised her chin, and said, “Because this is my command, and I promised myself, when they gave it to me, that I’d only pick the best officers for my crew.”

She looked like she meant it. His heart clenched hard, and someday, when he looked back, he would realize that there, in that moment, five minutes after he met her, he fell in love with her—not a flighty kind of affection, not even anything romantic, but a love that dug roots down deep into his gut and anchored itself in his spine, that made him hers in an instant. He felt ready to drop to a knee and swear loyalty and service and—

Maybe she saw the tumult of his disordered emotions, because she touched his arm and gestured at her door. “Come on,” she said, gently, “I’ll introduce you to the bridge crew.”

#

Shiro ended up re-meeting the lieutenant who’d greeting him on the space dock, along with the tactical officer – a lieutenant named Keith – and the operations officer, who looked about seventeen and who everyone referred to as ‘Pidge.’ Allura showed him around the rest of the ship, afterwards, escorting him down to engineering where she introduced him to the chief engineer, a lieutenant known as Hunk. They ended their tour in sickbay, where a short man with brilliant red hair bounced around the room.

“And that’s Chief Medical Officer Coran,” Allura explained, after the CMO went off to replicate some tea. 

Shiro sorted his name into place with all the rest that he’d learned over the last hour. He’d always been good with names.

“Thank you,” he said, afterwards, as she walked beside him towards his quarters. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“Nonsense,” she said, looking up over her shoulder and smiling at him. “You’re part of my crew now, and I want you to feel welcome.” They paused in front of his quarters. “Is there anything else you need?”

He’d already taken too much of her time. She continued on her way after they exchanged goodbyes and he watched her for longer than he should have, before entering his quarters. The air inside felt cool on his skin, the open space filled only with a bed. It all looked so empty. He swore someone moved behind his shoulder and turned quickly, but no one loomed there.

He shook his head and scrubbed his hands across his face. The counselors he’d spoken to all said the bad dreams and the waking nightmares would fade, eventually. He only needed to give them time. And now he had something to focus on while he waited.

#

They left space dock after a few more days, their orders sending them to the front lines of the war. Things had grown more serious since Shiro’s capture. They’d lost ships and entire colonies to the Borg advances. The body count grew higher and higher. And then there were the ones they lost, the ones like Shiro, who were… taken.

None of the others escaped. Only Shiro held that distinction.

Pity surged through him the first time they came upon drones in the field, along with disgust, both at the creatures and at his mechanical arm, which served as a constant reminder of what had been done to him. He woke from his nightmares screaming that night, scrambling for a bin to dry-heave into.

He decided he needed some air and wandered through the halls, ending up in one of the mess halls, mostly abandoned at the late hour, empty save for Lance and Hunk. Hunk appeared to be doing repairs on one of the replicators while Lance argued, “I’m telling you he’s got to be, like, half-Vulcan or something.” Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered if the lieutenant thought he was being quiet.

“Keith’s not half-Vulcan,” Hunk said back, frowning at his tricorder.

“You say that, but have you seen how strong he is? And have you ever seen him display emotion?”

Hunk rolled his eyes, “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m going to ask him.” Lance nodded like he’d made up his mind and leaned back in his seat, radiating satisfaction.

“You can’t ask someone if they’re half anything,” Hunk protested, pulling out a sensor and examining it. “What’s wrong with you, seriously?”

Shiro shook his head, ordered nothing from the replicators, and turned back to pace the ship some more.

#

Things went well, as well as could be expected in the middle of a war none of them had properly trained to fight. Could you properly train to fight a race that could absorb you into their own, turn you against your people, adapt to every attack you threw at them? It seemed not. They scraped by, taking damage and charging into battle again and again and it… helped.

Most of the time. Shiro got to learn the crew and grew fond of them all, from Keith’s awkward determination, to Pidge’s quiet focus, Lance’s bluster to cover his nerves, Hunk’s exuberance, and Allura’s… Well. Just Allura. Doing his job, taking care of them when they needed it, it gave him purpose, a reason to shake off the panic that sometimes crawled into his throat and stayed there, or the nightmares that clawed away at his peaceful sleep.

He thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be alright, or as alright as they could be in the middle of a war, until the day they received an emergency hail from a planet on the border of the Romulan demilitarized zone reporting an attack by three Borg Cubes.

The Arus was the only Federation ship close enough to reach the planet, but they all knew their odds against three Cubes. They went anyway, at red alert. How could they not? They found the Cubes stationed around, not the planet, but a strange device that the drones assembled in the space between the Cubes.

“So, there’s no way that’s good, right?” Lance asked, steady at his station despite his mouth.

“Scan it,” Allura ordered, “and take us past quickly. Arm our new proton torpedoes and prepare for evasive maneuvers.” 

Afterwards, Shiro remembered little of the attack but the burn of adrenaline, the smell of smoke that filled the bridge over the course of the battle, and the blood that slid down Allura’s temple as she snapped orders, her long fingers curled around her armrests.

They lost shields before they even took down one Cube and took heavy damage across all decks before Pidge started yelling something about the strange device the Cubes seemed to be protecting. She shouted, “I’ve never seen power levels like this,” and, a moment later, “Captain, I think it’s some kind of…. Of a sub-space bomb. If it goes off—”

“Can we stop it?” Shiro asked from where he’d taken over Keith’s station, pulling the unconscious man to the side and scowling at the weapon’s systems.

“Maybe,” Pidge yelled back. “Give me a sec, I think if we just….” They took another hard shot, just as the inertial dampeners failed and threw them all. Lance landed badly on his arm and screamed, the bones in his arm bent back at unnatural angles. 

Allura sprung from her seat and took his station, rolling them out of the way of another shot and shouting, “We don’t have another second.”

“No, no, I think I’ve got it.” Pidge hauled herself up using her console. “If I just—”

“Just do it!” Allura ordered. “We don’t have time for you to explain!”

“But, Captain.” Shiro shot a look at Pidge, startled by her tone. She’d gone pale and a burn stretched across her neck. “I don’t know – the subspace damage, there’s no telling what it’ll do to us.”

Allura stared out the view screen, but only for a moment. “Is there any other way to stop it?”

Pidge squeezed her eyes shut. “No.”

Allura nodded, her fingers flying across the controls. “Then do it.”

And it said something about her, about the crew, about their bravery, that no one cried out when Pidge bent over her controls, her fingers moving furiously.

A second later the device started shimmering. Seconds after that it exploded, knocking the Arus back and throwing Shiro back against the wall. Allura tumbled across the deck, and for a moment it seemed that everything would be alright. And then the ship started vibrating and moving through space, pulled towards the sub-space device. 

“Everyone hold on!” Shiro yelled and—

#

Shiro’s skin felt sunburned and his throat ached when he cracked his eyes open, shocked to find he still lived. The lights on the bridge were dimly flashing red and somewhere alarm klaxons blared. He groaned and rolled sideways, shaking his head in an attempt to stop the bridge from spinning.

Everyone else remained on the floor, either unconscious or barely stirring. Shiro pulled himself up and clutched at his console for balance, trying to bring up scanners. The computer responded slowly and then with incomplete information. They’d lost main power and back-up systems seemed to be barely functional.

He banged on the screen and then re-read what it reported, before looking towards the front view screen – it showed nothing, not with the drain on power. Across the bridge Allura groaned and Shiro abandoned the computer and hurried to her.

He knelt beside her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and said, “Careful, you hit your head.”

“I’m fine,” she said, waving away his concern and gripping his shoulder. “Are we—we’re alive? What happened?” Shiro swallowed hard, looked back at the computer, and she must have seen his expression. Her grip tightened and she demanded, “What? Commander? What happened?”

#

“So, what you’re saying,” Lance said later, when the senior staff gathered in Allura’s ready room to try to hash out exactly what had happened, “is that we blew up the weapon, created a subspace anomaly, and got sucked through.”

Hunk looked irritated at being interrupted. “That’s right. Broadly.”

“And now we’re 4,600 light years away from home,” Pidge added. No one said what that meant for them, realistically. They could make it home in four years, maybe, if they flew in a straight line with no interruptions. Their situation made that incredibly unlikely.

“In the middle of a section of space that seems to be overrun by the Borg,” Keith chimed in and Shiro’s throat closed as his artificial hand twitched against his leg. Cold sweat plastered his uniform to his back.

“And,” Hunk cleared his throat, “the Arus is in really bad shape. All of our major systems need repairs.”

“Alright,” Allura spoke, finally, standing with an expression of set determination. “Organize repair crews immediately, I want our warp engines and shields online as soon as possible. Set up shifts so that we can get the work done as quickly as possible. And make sure you keep a close eye on the scanners, Pidge, I don’t want a Cube sneaking up on us.”

The staff scattered immediately to their assignments, leaving only Shiro and Allura. He stared at her, taking a kind of comfort in her calm, drawing enough strength to shove down the half-remembered pain of probes moving beneath his skin, of metal grafted to bones, of— He stepped around the table towards her and said, “You should go to sick bay.”

“What?” She reached towards the wound on her temple and winced. “Oh. No, this is nothing.”

“Captain….”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing a dermal regenerator won’t fix later in my cabin.” He nodded, accepting the decision, and started to turn away, only to be called back. “Commander.” She reached out and touched his arm, feather-soft, and he froze. “How are—are you—is this?” She grimaced and gestured to the viewports. 

“I’m alright,” he said and willed it to be true. 

Allura looked like she doubted him, but she didn’t call him on the lie. She just squeezed his arm, briefly, and released him. “Good. You have some engineering experience, don’t you?” She smiled wearily when he nodded. “Then let’s get to work.”

#

They patched the Arus up, as best they could, and started the long process of limping their way home. They ran into Borg ships almost immediately and fought for just long enough to escape – they didn’t have the firepower or the support for a stand-up fight. They hit and ran, barely scraping away thanks to a crazy plan Pidge concocted on the fly.

They lost two crew members in the fight, the poor souls beamed aboard the Borg Cube during a brief moment when they lost their shields, one ensign directly from the bridge, right in front Shiro’s eyes.

He watched the woman disappear, snatched away to hell, and it froze him for vital seconds while a torrent of horrific memories flooded into his mind. And afterwards, when Allura’s voice called him back to the present, relief surged through him – they hadn’t taken him again, they hadn’t, they hadn’t – and he hated himself for it.

Shiro had just climbed out of his third sonic shower of the evening when his door chimed. Allura stood on the other side and a conflicting wave of a half-dozen emotions crashed through Shiro all at once. He wasn’t fit to be around people, not with all the half-remembered horrors of the Borg dredged up to his conscious mind. And he hadn’t thought to grab a shirt, revealing the ugly graft of his mechanical arm and all the scars the Borg had left on his skin. But her presence pleased him, nonetheless. More than it should have. He’d thought, for a terrible instant on the bridge, that the Borg had taken her. He barely managed to invite her in.

She wandered around his cabin for a moment – she’d never been inside before – but there wasn’t much to see. Eventually she sat, shaking her head when he asked, “Can I get you something? Tea? Coffee?” Left with nothing to occupy his hands, he sat beside her, worrying belatedly that he should have pulled on a shirt. “Is everything okay?”

Allura snorted a laugh and it startled Shiro enough to make him laugh, as well, the ridiculousness of the question catching up with him. They sat there, inappropriate laughter filling the air around them, until she bent over and pressed her face against her hands, her shoulders still shaking. Shiro’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t reach out to touch her. That wouldn’t be appropriate.

Allura looked up eventually and measured him with her eyes. He held her gaze, grateful that she never glanced down at his scars with anything like disgust. She said, “I hate to ask you this, but you’re… you have experience no one else has. If we went back, is there any way we could – could find them? Could we get them back?”

Shiro felt his heart lurch and shoved all the memories away, desperately. He shook his head and looked away so he didn’t have to see her disappointment. His voice sounded raw. “No. No, going back would just mean we lost more people.”

Allura nodded and said nothing. They sat there, in his dim quarters, for a long time, in the quiet. He thought maybe neither one of them wanted to face the dark alone.

#

They played a terrible game of cat and mouse with the Borg, trying to avoid Cubes and running when they couldn’t, losing crew members to injury or transporter beams, the slow war of attrition eating away at the Arus.

But they made progress, slow and sorely bought. They crawled months closer to home – a year closer to home – all of them harder than they’d been before their unwilling exodus began.

And then Pidge found a strange space station, full of so much electromagnetic radiation they could barely get a read on it, and putting out a terrifying amount of energy. “We think it’s in communication with a tremendous amount of Borg Cubes,” Pidge said, standing in front of a screen and presenting what she and Hunk had found. “Maybe all of them.”

Shiro grabbed his arm rests, a memory clawing out of his hindbrain, a glimpse of the strange knowing that he’d felt when the Borg took him, information transmitted directly inside his skull, the Collective— 

Allura leaned forward in her seat, “What kind of communication?”

“We’re not sure,” Hunk answered with a shrug. “We barely understand Borg technology, but the sheer amount of information that it’s transmitting…. We think it has to be important.”

“I don’t know,” Lance said. “It could just be systems updates, you know? Or the Borg reading list—”

“No,” Shiro interrupted, focusing on the present moment and not the nausea in his throat. “No, I remember a place like this. It’s a systems hub. It—it’s hard to explain but they use it to coordinate drone movements.”

Allura stared at him. “Could we disrupt it?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“If we did,” Allura continued, “how many Cubes would it impact?”

“There’s no way to know for sure.” Shiro wished he could be precise. “But a lot of them. It might make going home much easier. It might even help with the war.”

Allura nodded. “Alright. We need a plan. Let’s get to work.”

#

They made a plan, a pretty good one, even, to get in and disrupt the interface with a limited risk to the crew by sending only a small team on one of the shuttles, Allura accompanying them because, next to Pidge, she had the most experience with Borg technology.

Everything started out so promisingly.

And then it fell apart.

He and Allura got separated from the others in the pursuit of victory, and the drones noticed them. The plan went sideways and in the end none of it mattered very much except that there were too many drones to hold back. Shiro stared into the unfeeling mass of them and his fingers clenched around his phaser –useless, the Borg had adapted –and he considered that some things were worse than death, that he could still—

And Allura shoved him into a closing airlock, nearly twenty feet away from where they stood. He’d forgotten how strong she was, so much stronger than a human. The doors slid shut just as he regained his feet and he threw his body against them, desperate. He fired his phaser at the metal and cried out, all uselessly.

Shiro ended up watching as Borg drones converged on Allura, their pale flesh obscured by the mechanical parts they grafted onto their bodies. She looked at him the whole time, as they stabbed their probes into her flesh, and he saw pain twitch her features but she didn’t cry out, she didn’t scream, she didn’t—

The airlock blew.

Shiro lost consciousness in the void of space and—

#

Shiro woke up in sick bay, Coran yelling over him, demanding to know where the Captain was while Keith tried and failed to explain. He hadn’t been there.

“I lost her,” Shiro ground out, his throat raw from exposure to the vacuum of space. “I lost her, they took her.”

The words kept repeating in his head, on a terrible loop. They Borg had Allura. They had her. They’d—

The sick bay bed dented under his fingers while Coran yelled and everyone else talked at once, until Keith raised his voice above it all and demanded, “Quiet! What are—what do we do? Now?”

Shiro looked up when he realized Keith was talking to him, that they all were looking at him. That made sense. He was the first-officer. With Allura taken, Shiro was in charge. That made deciding what to do his responsibility.

He knew what the smart thing to do would be – to leave, now. To run far away from here, towards Federation space. That’s what he’d always advised Allura in the past. It’s what she would have wanted. She’d known those taken were worse than dead and she still sacrificed herself to save one lousy crew member – him, to save him – and that said enough about her thoughts on the matter.

She wouldn’t want him to risk anyone else to get her back.

But something hot and raging had settled down into Shiro’s gut and turned his spine to fire. He no longer cared about being sensible. He stood and said, “Now we get her back.”

#

They argued, but not very much, and brought up how Shiro had said this or that would be too dangerous, in the past. None of that mattered anymore. He didn’t care. They came up with a plan, a crazy, desperate plan, and he sat in the captain’s chair and led them directly into hell itself, after his—

After Allura.

#

In the end, everything went wrong and the Borg Queen – he remembered her, all in a rush, as she approached him, along with every horrifying thing she did to his body, nonono—cornered Shiro and pinned him to the wall before he ever saw Allura again. He thought maybe he got the fate he deserved for letting everyone down, even as he snarled into the monster’s face.

And then someone grabbed the Queen from behind and threw her bodily off, and Shiro thought he hallucinated the sight of Allura, pale, with her hair all shaved off and metal pieces grafted onto her body. She wobbled in front of him, her eyes rolling back, and Shiro lurched forward to catch her before she hit the floor, her body all dead weight in his arms.

“Come on!” Hunk yelled, bouncing back and forth in alarm. Shiro didn’t even know where the engineer had come from, but he gestured Shiro forward desperately. “Come on, come on, we have to go, I don’t know how long Pidge’s neural blocker is going to work, we could lose her again any second!”

None of it made sense. None of it mattered. Shiro lifted Allura as the Borg Queen regained her feet and followed Hunk when he ran down the hall.

Hunk led Shiro directly to a shuttle. Lance sat behind the controls – this had been part of the plan, Shiro belatedly remembered. “Get us out of here!” he ordered as the rear hatch closed and Lance wasted no time talking for once, simply engaging the engines and rocketing them forward.

Shiro sat in the back, his arms locked around Allura, and tried to remember how to breathe.

#

It wasn’t that easy, of course. They’d walked up and kicked the wasp’s nest. Cubes swarmed all around the besieged Arus. Shiro had to leave Allura in sick bay, they needed him on the bridge as they made an attempt to get away fueled more by desperation than anything else.

They made it, just as the Borg deployed some new weapon, the jolt of it following the ship into warp and knocking them off course.

It mattered little. They escaped. They lived. It was good enough.

#

Shiro avoided sick bay while they pulled all the Borg tech out of Allura’s body and severed her connection to the Collective. He couldn’t bring himself to step inside; the thought of seeing someone else go through the process brought the taste of bile to the back of his throat. But he received progress reports and felt a little bit of the tension in his shoulders ease with each slow step forward.

He ran the ship, led them through a run in with another Cube, and thought about what he’d done after Allura was taken, when he couldn’t avoid it.

It frightened him.

He served as the ship’s first officer. His duty, in the event that Allura was incapacitated, was to assume command, to think of the crew first, to lead them properly. And he hadn’t. She compromised him. No, that was unfair to her. His feelings for her compromised him, deeply. He’d taken every soul aboard the ship into almost certain death because he couldn’t leave her behind.

And the worst part was that he’d do it again, and he knew it.

The thoughts ate away at him throughout her recovery and still lingered once Coran released her from sickbay and she called him to her quarters.

He’d never seen the inside of her rooms before. She used little ornamentation, the room contained only the basics, but he barely looked at the decor. He hadn’t seen her in the better part of two weeks.

Her hair had grown in as a short fuzz across her scalp, not dark enough to hide the healing flesh across her skull. She looked leaner than she had, but otherwise alright, unchanged in her uniform. The visual proof that she lived, that she healed, knocked the breath out of his lungs. He barely managed to nod when she invited him in and offered him a drink.

“Coran tells me I have you to thank for the rescue,” she said, over the top of a cup of steaming coffee. She sounded cheerful enough, but something else lurked beneath her words.

His jaw flexed. “No. You have me to thank for being taken. For everything they did to you.” The words came out harder than he’d intended. His emotions felt too raw to sit here, in her quarters. To have her so close. He saw that she’d healed but his hands itched to make sure, and that – that was terribly inappropriate.

Allura shifted beside him, reached out, and placed a hand on his arm. “Commander…. Shiro.” He startled at the sound of his name on her lips, jerking his head up to stare at her. Her eyes looked bigger with her hair so short. His fingers twitched and he balled them up. “You weren’t to blame for what happened.”

He shook his head. “I let them take you.”

Allura smiled, small and tired. “No.” She sipped at her coffee and grimaced just a little. “No, I’m certain there was nothing you could have done to stop it. I knew what I was doing, back on the station,” she said, calm though Shiro’s heart beat painfully at his ribs. “And I’d do it again.”

The thought made Shiro ill. He clenched his jaw shut, grinding his teeth when Allura stood, moving to put her empty cup away. She said, as she passed, “And I didn’t expect… that is. You didn’t have to – I know what they did to you, and I—”

He’d never heard her struggle with her words before. He reached out and caught her wrist, though he knew he shouldn’t, that he had no right to touch her. She looked down at him, her eyes widening in surprise, and he tried to let go. It didn’t work. He said, giving up, “I’ll always come for you.”

They stayed frozen in that moment, staring at one another. He waited for her to shake her head, to tell him that he couldn’t say that, that the crew had to come first, but she only nodded, something like relief passing quickly across her features. He wanted to stand, then, to be in her space, to tilt her chin up and see if she had truly recovered.

But.

He couldn’t. Not here. Not on this ship. Not in this place. Not now. Maybe someday.

So he squeezed her wrist softly and withdrew his hand, and she cleared her throat. “Well,” she said, her voice thick, “look at how late it is.”

“Yes,” he agreed and stood. “I should—”

And she reached out, hugging him before he could continue. She gripped hard, but nowhere near as hard as she could have, and it took only seconds for him to curl his arms around her back and gather her close. He had not been held, nor touched for more than a moment or two, since… before the Borg. He’d forgotten how good it felt and he pulled her closer, tucking the crown of her head under his chin as he felt her fingers clench in his shirt.

They stood there until he lost track of time, the two of them locked together with in the middle of thousands of lightyears of enemy space, with two-hundred crew members to get home safely. Alone, but together.

Maybe that was good enough.


	3. Fair Trade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ah, good,” the warden said, when the guard showed Allura to her office. “You’ve returned. I assume you brought the entry fee to have your man’s case heard?”
> 
> “He’s not—” Allura started, but it mattered little. She didn’t have the energy to argue. Her body felt strange and weak. “Yes.” She drew the credit chips from her pocket. “I have it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for day 3 of Shallura week for the prompts Sacrifice and Duty (but mostly sacrifice). This fic is set in some nebulous time post-season one and features elements of sci-fi horror and violence!

Allura hadn’t ridden in one of the lions since the disastrous attack on the heart of the Galra Empire, all those months ago, before she and Coran were separated from the Paladins and they were all forced to claw their way back to one another. It felt good to be in one again, even if it was only for a diplomatic mission to establish contact with a planet that had once held strong allegiance to her people.

She rode with Shiro, the rest of the pilots back on the Castle of Lions with Coran, taking a much needed break. “I appreciate that you volunteered to accompany me,” she said, two days into their trip. “I know this kind of thing isn’t exactly exciting.” She’d been surprised, in fact, when he offered his company. Surely he deserved a chance to relax as much as anyone else.

He shrugged and stretched his arms up above his head. He’d picked up a new scar, across his left cheek, during his time away, and new shadows in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he said, “I kind of enjoy the missions where no one shoots at us. And the quiet. And….” He glanced up at her and trailed off. “It’s just nice.”

Allura flushed, turning her attention away from his smile before he noticed. “Well, let’s hope—”  
And then the lion shook and she barely managed to grab her chair in time to avoid being thrown to the ground.

“What’s—?”

“It’s some kind of ship,” Shiro answered, bent over the controls.

“Galra?”

“Yes.” He bit the word off, concentrating on the attack. She let him focus, gritting her teeth as another attack shook the lion.

The fight stretched around them, hard and brutal. Shiro carved up Galra ships, but there always appeared to be more. And then something caught them, holding them in place.

“It’s some kind of tractor beam,” Allura offered, reading the screens and scowling. “They’re trying to draw us in!” Of course they were. They wanted the black lion more than anything.

“I have an idea to get us out of here,” Shiro replied, hurriedly, and then, “Hold on!”

Afterwards, Allura would never be able to adequately explain what happened, but they did escape.

Sort of.

#

Crash landing passed in a dizzy, nauseating blur. Allura woke up slumped over a computer console with her head pounding and a sour taste in her mouth. She groaned and stood up slowly, picking her way over to Shiro. He’d been flung onto the floor during the crash. Allura knelt beside him, checking his pulse and debating the wisdom of moving him without knowing if he’d injured his spine.

She decided not to risk it and moved back to the consoles, instead, trying to find out where they were. The computer offered little information. They’d landed on a planet, populated and technologically advanced, operating mostly independent of the Galra Empire. She sighed and pulled up system schematics.

The lion had been badly damaged. Self-repair protocols had already been initiated, but they could take over a week to complete.

Allura wandered back to sit beside Shiro, nudging him gently until he groaned and blinked up at her. “Allura…?” He reached up groggily and managed to grab her shoulder. “What happened?”

“We crashed,” she offered. “Can you stand?”

#

They’d crashed only a few clicks away from a large town and made their way down to it, after hiding the lion as best they could. Their radio was down, but perhaps someone in the city would have some way to contact the others to let them know what had happened. The city was full of close packed buildings and too many humanoids, all hurrying about. She and Shiro stuck out, even with the emergency clothing they’d began carrying in the lions to deal with situation that called on them land on a planet and blend in.

Still, exploring new places was always enjoyable and Shiro made good company. They found no way to send a message home, but within a few days the lion would be repaired enough to travel. They had only to stick it out, so when Shiro sighed as the sun sank, and said, “What do you think, should we find something to eat?” Allura nodded.

They ended up in a bar of some kind – the only establishment that seemed inclined to offer them a tab. They sat at one of the close-packed tables and listened to local music, with so little available space that Shiro’s arm pressed against hers. “Hardly feels like we crash landed earlier at all,” she mused into his ear, after their food came, and he snorted a laugh, turning to say something back when another patron crashed onto their table, crushed it, and came up swinging.

Shiro jerked Allura out of the way, an unnecessary precaution, absorbing the blow with his shoulder and grunting. Allura looked over her shoulder for the door and shouted when another patron shoved into her. Yelling filled the bar, suddenly, and she gathered someone had started a fight for some reason.

She never discerned the why and it seemed unimportant. Shiro grabbed her arm and shoved one of the drunks away and at that moment the local police force burst through the door and shot something into the room that made Allura’s eyes run and clogged up her throat.

She coughed and wheezed, grabbing for Shiro only to feel him jerked away by a man dressed all in black, with an official looking badge pinned to the front of his shirt. By the time Allura managed to yell a protest, they’d gone. They’d all gone.

She sat alone, save two other patrons, in the wreckage of the bar.

“What just happened?” she demanded.

#

No one wanted to tell her, but Allura could be quite determined when she set her mind to it. She learned that the police force on the planet took security almost comically seriously and that anyone involved in an altercation was taken immediately to the local prison to be confined until their case could be considered.

So she straightened up as best she could and went to the local prison to get Shiro’s case considered.

It took the rest of the night and better of half the following day before anyone saw her. She dared not reveal who she was, not when this world was likely sympathetic to the Galra. By the time a guard showed her back to the warden’s office, her stomach growled terribly and she’d developed a headache that wouldn’t fade away.

Shiro probably had it worse.

The warden was a tall, stocky woman with lime green skin and four eyes the color of rubies. She worked on cracking each of the knuckles on her four hands as the guard showed Allura into the room, and only then looked up to say, “I hear you’re looking for your man.”

Heat stained Allura’s cheeks. “He’s not really my man.”

“Sure,” the warden drawled, “but you’re here for him, right? The pale-skinned one who looks like you? Not got enough arms?”

“Yes,” Allura nodded, agreeably as she could. “I’m here to get him out.”

And the warden smiled. “You have the entry fee, then?”

Allura felt something cold slide down her back. “I’m sorry, entry fee?”

“To talk about his release? I can’t help you without it.”

Allura shook her head, “But this is just a misunderstanding. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

The warden tsked. “I’m sure. But see, I can’t even talk to you about it without the entry fee. It’s just the rules. I hope you understand.”

The woman had the kind of flat, mean expression that meant arguing would be useless, so Allura ground her teeth and said, “Of course. And how much is this… entry fee?” Not that it mattered. She had no money that they’d take on this world.

The warden leaned back. “Oh, 200 credits ought to do it. Bring it to me by tonight and we’ll see what we can do for your man.”

Allura was too distracted to reiterate that he wasn’t her man.

#

She ended up on the streets, credit-less and not sure where to start. She approached a business to find work but they laughed and then pointed out that they didn’t pay anywhere near 200 credits for a day’s labor, anyway. She tried two more businesses, anyway, for a lack of anything better to do, and a man at the second took pity on her and said, “You might have better luck in the trade quarter. Can barter for just about anything, down there.”

The trade quarter turned out to be a miserable section of the city, overhung by smog and designed like a warren, full of blind alleys and dead ends. Allura wandered through the stalls, looking at goods both old and new and wondering what she could possibly sell. She carried no possessions with her but her clothes and they were certainly not worth 200 credits.

She stopped for a break, eventually, foot sore and terribly hungry, and leaned against a grimy wall to stare at the stands around her. People sold animals, food, cloth, and a hundred other sundry items. But nothing that seemed likely to help her free Shiro.

The thought of him trapped in a prison ate away at her thoughts. Did it dredge up memories of his capture at the hands of the Galra? Did he have any way of knowing that she was trying to get him out? Could he have thought she abandoned him? Surely he knew she would not, but she failed to comfort herself with the assurances.

She should never have allowed him to be taken.

She—

She jerked when an old man teetered to a stop beside her and buried two of his hands into her hair. “I’m sorry,” she sputtered, shocked, and started to pull away. He tightened his grip and she froze.

“Don’t be,” he wheezed, rubbing strands of her hair between his fingers. “This is amazing. Where’d you get it?” He squinted up at her.

Allura boggled back at him. “I grew it.”

He grunted and tugged, like he was checking the tensile strength of the individual strands. “Hm. Great quality.” He raised a handful of the strands and rubbed them across his cheeks. Allura grimaced and then nearly swallowed her tongue when he said, “I’ll give you 100 credits for it.” He squinted up at her hairline. “All of it.”

Allura started to refuse, but what else did she have to sell? And anyway, it would grow back. It was a small sacrifice. “200,” she countered.

He snorted, “110.”

In the end, she talked him up to 150 and counted herself lucky, even as he led her over to his dilapidated stall and pushed her down onto a stool. He mumbled the entire time he worked, pulling out scissors and snipping through the thick strands implacably. Allura stared straight ahead and strove to ignore his words and the snip-snip of the scissors by her ears.

He placed the credits in her hand afterwards, already braiding some of the strands of her hair together into… something, and she started to walk away, before turning back. “Excuse me,” she asked, “do you know where I could get anymore of these?” She gestured with the credits.

He squinted at her and waved one hand down the road. “Might be down there. Depending on what you feel like selling. Takes all kinds of things down there, they do. Mm. Skin and blood. Teeth, if you got them.”

Allura shuddered and mumbled a hasty thank you. She decided to try her luck elsewhere, but came up with nothing. Hours later, she ended up right where he’d directed, in even darker stalls, cramped full of strange machines with sharp edges.

She sold a liter of her blood for 50 credits, enduring the needle in the curve of her elbow and the nausea in her gut, relieved beyond words when it finally ended.

She had enough. It was over. 

#

“Ah, good,” the warden said, when the guard showed Allura to her office. “You’ve returned. I assume you brought the entry fee to have your man’s case heard?”

“He’s not—” Allura started, but it mattered little. She didn’t have the energy to argue. Her body felt strange and weak. “Yes.” She drew the credit chips from her pocket. “I have it.”

“Good, good.” The warden held out a hand, her smile wide and toothy. “That’s excellent.”

Allura started to offer out the chip and then hesitated. “Where is he?”

“Your man?”

“He’s not—yes. Why isn’t he here?”

The warden tsked, a sound of manufactured concern. “Well, I can’t give him to you yet.”

Allura ground her teeth together and swallowed her anger and fear and all the other messy emotions in her chest. “Why not? I brought you the credits.”

The warden shrugged. “Those? Those are just the entry fee, sweetheart. The magister will require a fee to look at the case, too, you see. You can bring it tomorrow. 450 credits should be just about enough.”

Ice filled up Allura’s gut and for a moment no words would come from her throat. She stared forward, into the warden’s flat smile and felt lightheaded. For 200 credits she’d sold her hair and her blood. She didn’t know what else she could give. To more than double that, she….

“Or you can wait for the court,” the warden continued, with a nonchalant shrug.

Allura tilted her chin up. She’d find a way. She had no choice. But before that… “I need to see proof of life,” Allura said, forcing her voice to stay steady and true, though the back of her neck felt freezing cold and the inside of her arm ached. “Before I give you anything, I want proof that he’s alive and well.”

The warden tilted her head to the side, her large eyes narrowing. “Very well,” the warden said, finally. “A reasonable request. This way, please.”

They led her to another room in the control center, one filled with screens, each showing a different area of the prison. “Here,” the warden said, jabbing a finger at a screen along one side. “There he is. Alive.”

Allura leaned closer, trying to take in as much information as she could. They had Shiro in a small cell, no longer or wider than Shiro was tall. A small cot sat in one corner and nothing else. But he did live, presently laying back on the floor, doing sit-ups. Sweat plastered his hair to his head and his shirt to his skin. They’d taken his clothes and replaced them with some kind of uniform, short-sleeved and a dull gray in color. 

“See?” the warden asked. “He is just as I promised. Now. The entry fee, please.”

Allura stared for another moment and then tore her eyes away from the screen. “Yes,” she said, “of course.” She held out the credit chips – such small things, to hold the worth of her hair and a liter of her blood.

The warden snatched them away hungrily, with a fat, satisfied smile.

Allura asked, dizzy at the loss and with a tight feeling of dread about how she would acquire more, “How much did you say the magistrate required?”

#

Allura wandered the streets absently, after she left the prison, barely feeling the cold bite of the air, barely seeing the people who passed her. This planet was a miserable hunk of rock, full of tightly packed streets and a stink in the air that never faded. Her mind churned as she walked, trying to consider what she could sell.

She had nothing else. Maybe she could find labor, but from the signs she saw none of it paid anywhere near enough to have Shiro released in a reasonable amount of time.

But there had to be something.

Allura stumbled upon the shop quite by accident, bumping into a patron as the man exited. Warm air flooded out of the store, making her immediately aware of how cold she’d grown, and she stepped inside without thinking.

Strange, glowing orbs lined the walls of the building, hundreds if not thousands of them, each shimmering a slightly different color. Allura wandered over to them, fascinated despite herself. She raised her fingers, brushing a touch across one that glowed a faint yellow and started as a memory of an early morning sunrise – of a sun she’d never seen – flooded into her mind, as clear and perfect as if she’d actually experienced it. She jerked back, startled.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” A smooth voice purred from behind her. Allura turned quickly to find a tall, thin man standing at her shoulder, his hair slicked flat to his head and each of his four eyes trained on her. His skin was a dark green color and he kept one set of his arms folded over his chest, the other behind his back.

Allura nodded. “What was it?”

“Ah,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “You’re unfamiliar with the memory trade?” Allura nodded. “It’s a wonderful experience. People with…. Unique memories can record them on these devices,” he gestured at the wall, “and those less fortunate can purchase them, experiencing the memory as if it were their own.”

Allura looked back at the orbs and shuddered. “But why buy them? I felt that one.”

The merchant shook his head. “You felt only a shadow of it. A taste. A preview. The true memory is much richer, and longer.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “And it features a great deal of….” His gaze dropped down her body. “Carnality.”

Allura grimaced and stepped away from him. “How fascinating. Well,” she brushed her hands down her thighs and turned, “I should be—”

“I cannot help but notice,” the merchant interrupted, too close to her again, “that you possess a great many intriguing memoires. Would you consider selling a few? You could make a tremendous amount of credits.”

Rebuttal sprang immediately to Allura’s lips, but she caught herself before a single word escaped. She looked at the little orbs once more and then back at the merchant, with a feeling of slow, terrible dread curling in her gut. She licked her lips and forced herself to ask, “How many credits, exactly?”

#

In the end, the merchant determined that she needed to sell only three memories to make enough credits for the magistrate’s payment. They haggled over the specifics – there were memories Allura couldn’t lose, and then he sat her down in a large, cold chair, and slipped a mask over her face and—

When she blinked again the world felt sideways and her gorge rose in her throat. She twisted around and the merchant grabbed her shoulders, directing her towards a bucket where she emptied her stomach. “There, there,” he assured, “it takes everyone like that, the first time. But you did very well.” She looked up at him, blearily. He held three shining orbs in his palm, each a pale rose color. “They’re perfect,” he said.

Allura wondered what they were. She couldn’t remember at all.

She shook the thought and the coldness it brought aside and rasped, “I’d like my credits now, please.”

#

Allura slept on the street that night, finding a quiet place behind a business that appeared to be shut down and huddling into a corner. She had no credits to spend on a room, or board. She’d rather go hungry and deal with the cold than lose another memory to such frivolity. 

She clenched the credits necessary to pay the magistrate in her hands and stared up at the sky, hidden by a thick fog, and hoped that Shiro held up alright, that he knew she would come for him, if he could only hold on.

#

The warden met Allura in the monitoring room, the next day, a disappointed look on her features. “I’m afraid there was a problem last night,” the woman said, and Allura’s heart lurched up into her throat.

“What kind of problem? What happened? Is he alright?” She pushed around the woman, looking for the screen that showed Shiro. She found him after only a moment. A huge bruise stretched across the right side of his face and the knuckles of his flesh-and-blood hand were split. He sat on the edge of his cot, his hands clenched in front of him and his head bowed. “What—”

“He started an altercation with the guards last night,” the warden said, with a disappointed shake of her head. “Several individuals were severely injured, before they managed to… contain him.”

“He didn’t mean it,” Allura said, immediately, even as panic burned along her veins. “He’s had—he has a history, but if you just let me talk to him, I can explain what’s going on and he won’t cause you—”

The warden snorted a laugh. “Please, save your breath. We’re going to be moving him in an hour, out to a higher security facility. I’m sorry,” she said, not looking it, “I won’t be able to help you then, but—”

“No,” Allura interrupted, her heart banging against her ribs. She couldn’t lose Shiro. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. He deserved better than that. She had a duty to protect all of the paladins, and she’d be damned before she failed in it. She rubbed her fingers across the credits she’d gained so sorely. “Please, surely there’s something you can do to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

The warden glanced over at her and smiled a terrible smile. “Well,” she sighed, “I suppose we could arrange something. For the right price.”

#

Allura left the prison with empty pockets and a debt of 600 credits to keep Shiro from being moved and to deal with an upper judge, apparently.

She gasped for breath, shaking from hunger and low dread, and then raised her chin and clenched her jaw.

She went back to the memory shop.

#

The next day brought an image of Shiro – healing – and another price tag, steeper than the ones before. Allura no longer felt surprised. She just nodded, trying to numb herself to what she had to do.

“He’s a decent man you’ve got there,” the warden said, when Allura prepared to leave, and Allura turned back to look at her, weary and so, so hungry. She’d found a half-eaten meal wrapped in a piece of paper that morning and eaten it without thought, but that was the only food she’d been able to find.

“What?”

The warden shrugged, “Most of the time they’re not. But not that one.” She nodded at the screen, where Shiro paced back and forth through his cell.

“Does that mean he’s going to be out soon?” Allura asked, exhaustion sharpening her words.

The warden laughed. “Just bring your payment and we’ll see.”

#

The memory shop took more. 

And more.

She made up some of the difference by selling more of her blood, as much as she dared.

Allura got used to the nagging ache of hunger in her stomach and the burn of exhaustion behind her eyes and one morning she considered that it didn’t matter how much she paid, that they might never let Shiro go, that they’d be trapped on this miserable world until she lost so many of her memories that it didn’t matter.

And then the warden slid a paper across her desk, and said, “Sign here.”

“What is it?” Allura asked, staring at the words blankly. She could have read them once, couldn’t she?

The warden snorted. “A release for your man. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

“No!” Allura snatched the pen and signed… something. She remembered what signatures should be, anyway, even if the way hers should look escaped her. She dropped the pen when she finished and demanded, “When are you bringing him out?”

The warden smiled a slow, lazy smile and waved at Allura to stand. “You can have him now. Hope he knows how lucky he is to have you.”

Allura barely heard the words. She followed on the warden’s heels, down to another room she’d never seen – unless she had – where the warden went over to discuss something with another guard. Allura fidgeted, her pulse pounding too loud, suddenly aware of her dirty clothes, her shorn head, everything….

She didn’t have time to dwell on it. A moment later the door across from her swung open and she heard “—go right now, or I’ll—Allura!”

Two guards dragged Shiro through the door and then released him. He looked alright, the last of the bruise fading off of his face. They’d given him back his clothes. He stood, panting, for just a moment and then jerked towards her, his hands landing on her shoulders while he looked her over, his eyes growing wider and wider and then flat and hard and angry.

“What did you do to her?” Shiro demanded, pushing her behind his back and turning on the prison guards. He moved differently when he was angry, his movement went fluid and dangerous. “I warned you—”

“We did nothing to her,” the warden drawled, her hand falling to the weapon at her hip. 

Shiro took another step forward anyway, and Allura caught him back, worried about reoffending, about what she might have to do to get him out of the prison a second time. “She’s telling the truth,” Allura hissed. “They never touched me.” Shiro looked at her doubtfully, but nodded. “Now, let’s go. Right now.”

“Have a pleasant stay,” the warden called, as Allura all but dragged Shiro away.

#

“Allura, Allura, stop,” Shiro demanded, as she dragged him through the streets. He pulled until she stopped, standing in the shadow of an alleyway.

“What?” she demanded, skittish beneath his gaze, too aware of the short crop of her hair, of the hunger in her gut, and the emptiness in her head.

“What happened to you?” he demanded, his hands curling warm around her shoulders – had anyone ever touched her so softly before? She could remember no other instance. He looked her up and down, his jaw clenching up. “Who did this to you? I’ll—”

“It’s not important,” she interrupted, and something hot and furious flashed across his eyes.

“It is,” he insisted, and he cupped her cheek with his hand, another touch Allura had no memory of, just as she had no recollection of his voice ever being so low and raw. “Tell me. Please.”

She looked to the side and tried to find a way to put it into words. “I—there were fees, to pay, to get your case heard before the magistrates—”

“Bribes,” Shiro growled.

“Bribes,” she agreed, nodding her head. “But they were necessary, that’s how this place functions. And I had no way to pay them. So.” She shrugged and avoided his eyes. “So I found a way. That’s all.”

For a moment they stood there in silence, and then she felt his fingers brush across the stubble of her hair. He said, sounding wounded, “You sold your hair.” She nodded, and he trailed his touch down, turning her arms over and scowling at the bandages over the insides of her elbows. “And this?”

“Blood,” she said, the word flat and dull on her tongue. “Someone paid me a fair price for it.”

Shiro swore and moved closer, as though he intended…. Allura didn’t know. Maybe she would have once.

“And what else?” He demanded. “What else did you have to sell?” Allura shook her head. The telling of it felt too painful, but he tilted her chin up and he said, quietly, “Allura. What else?”

And she whispered, “Memories. I sold my memories.”

#

Allura followed Shiro back through town as he stormed forward, his hand gripping hard around hers, all the way through the swinging, unmarked doors to the memory shop, after he demanded its location.

The clerk looked up and smiled, brilliantly, calling to Allura, “Ah, I was hoping you’d—”

Shiro interrupted, stalking towards the counter, “You took something from her, something you shouldn’t have, and now you’re going to give it back.”

The clerk sniffed. Had Allura known his name, once? He looked Shiro up and down and pulled his mouth up into a moue of distaste. “Have you brought payment for what you want?” His gaze slid towards Allura. “Memories are very expensive.”

Shiro leaned forward, apparently undeterred, and said, “Fine, you can take mine, instead. We’ll make a trade.”

Allura jerked forward, “Shiro, no.” She wouldn’t allow him to sacrifice any more than he already had. She hadn’t lost anything that important, anyway. New memories could be made, it was—

But he didn’t even turn to look. The clerk looked intrigued, for a moment, but then he tsked and shook his head. “Apologies. There’s nothing in your head I could sell.”

Shiro froze and something terrible twisted across his expression. Allura reached out and touched his arm, shivery with relief and the urge to be gone from this place. She started, “Shiro….”

But he shrugged her off and leaned forward, pressing both of his palms against the merchant’s counter and talking low and cold, “You looked at my memories?” The merchant nodded, unconcerned, and a smile cut across Shiro’s face like a knife. “And you still think it’s a good idea to tell me you can’t help her?”

The merchant stared into Shiro’s expression and color drained from his face, leaving his skin a sickly color, like curdled milk. He started to take a step back and Shiro moved faster than a thought, reaching out and closing the fingers of his artificial hand around the man’s wrist, holding him easily in place.

“No, no, s-sir, you misunderstand me. I’d be h-happy to assist you, and your—” Shiro made a short, sharp sound and the merchant flinched. “And the lady, but, you s-see, I cannot. The memories all s-sold. I implanted the last of them t-this morning.”

Allura squeezed her eyes shut for a moment at the loss, though she knew not what it encompassed. Her throat felt too tight to breathe and she tugged again on Shiro’s arm. She wanted to leave this place, more than anything else. But Shiro reached out and patted the merchant’s shoulder, dragging him halfway across the counter in the process, and said, “Then you better call in all your clients and let them know they’re going to have to make some returns.”

“I w-wish I could, sir,” the merchant stammered. “But, alas, the memories degrade if drawn out again. There would be nothing left to return. My sincerest apologies, truly. P-perhaps you’d like to…” he waved a hand around the store, “peruse the other wares. I’ll give her a choice of memories, on the house, to m-make up for the inconvenience.”

Shiro’s jaw twitched and the muscles down his arms flexed. The merchant flailed a hand up and yanked desperately at Shiro’s wrist, and Allura stepped closer and said, against Shiro’s ear, “Please, let’s just go. We can’t stay here.”

He looked over at her with emotions wild behind his eyes and she only nodded, tugging on him again.

After a moment he released the merchant, who collapsed, gasping. Shiro turned towards her and said, “We can find a way, we don’t have to just—”

“We don’t have time,” Allura reminded him. “We’re needed. And I didn’t lose anything all that important.” She forced a smile – for all she knew the words were true – and his fingers clenched tighter around her arm.

He said, low and thick, “Let me just—”

“No,” she said, firmly as she could, tilting her chin up and trying to pretend she felt anything like regal. “We’re going. Now.”

For a moment she thought he would argue, but he nodded, instead, and turned her away from the counter. They walked beneath the ringing bell and out into the dim street, all the way out of town and to the hills that hid the black lion.

And Allura hid her marvel at her first sight of the giant, impressive beast. Had she seen it before? She must have….

“Allura….” Shiro said, when he caught her staring at the side of the lion and she shook her wonder away. He looked pained and furious and half-beaten, still.

“I’m fine,” she lied, easily enough. “We’re both fine. That’s what’s important. Let’s get back to the lion and go home. The others must be so worried.”


	4. Measured in Millimeters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And that’s why you don’t bring unknown botanical life onto the ship,” Coran finished, a few minutes later, with a chiding look at Lance. As near as Shiro understood it, the flower Lance had brought had released some kind of spores that reacted to Altean biology in…. uncomfortable ways. Allura’s unconsciousness was a normal symptom and so was the pain, spread to Shiro because he was the first person she touched after being exposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for day 4 of Shallura Week for the prompt Distance (or a lack thereof, in this case.) Set post-season one. Mostly just silly fluff with a cracky premise (alien pollen ftw).

The blame all fell on Lance.

He thought grabbing the large, plush flower off the surface of the planet they’d visited was a good idea, insisting that the blue color of the petals was perfect. And he’d been the one to bounce up to Allura and offer it out with an overdramatic bow, grinning when she said, “Oh, um, thank you,” and took it from him.

“It reminded me of your eyes,” Lance purred.

Allura wrinkled her nose and murmured, “I see.” She raised the bloom to take a sniff of it and, really, it was only lucky chance that Shiro walked up behind her at that moment and that he stood in the position to catch her when she made a soft, pained sound and dropped like a lead weight.

Shiro grunted in surprise and grabbed her automatically, curling an arm around her back and, when she continued to collapse, sweeping up her legs. She hung limp in his hold, her head tilted back at a terrible angle, her eyes shut and her mouth open, completely dead weight.

“Allura!” He lifted her higher and ignored Lance’s worried chatter. “Call Coran!” he called when she failed to respond, turning on his heel and heading down towards the medical bay. “Tell him something happened to the princess!”

Her fingers opened as he bore her away and the flower fell from her hold, forgotten.

#

Shiro barely recalled the trip to the medical bay and barely felt Allura’s weight in his arms – though he was aware that she weighed more than a human woman of her size would have, something about Altean biology. He slid through the doors before Coran made it, with Pidge, Keith, and Lance hot on his heels.

Allura hadn’t woken. She hadn’t even stirred.

Shiro tripped over to the nearest medical bed and laid her across the mattress, worried by the slackness of her expression. He straightened and demanded, “Where’s Coran, we need him here.” He started to step away from the bed – he’d go find Coran on his own, if he had to – and made in two steps before blinding pain raced up his spine and radiated up into his head and through his limbs.

He choked, blinded by agony, tripped, and the pain threw him into unconsciousness before he hit the ground.

#

“Come on now, up, up, up!” Coran chirped from somewhere above him, his upbeat tone doing nothing to relieve Shiro’s headache. He cracked an eye open and groaned. He felt awful, though not as bad as he had immediately before passing out. “Ah!” Coran exclaimed, his mustache looming in Shiro’s vision, “There you are! Can you tell me how you’re feeling?”

Shiro squinted up at him. “Hurts.”

“I see,” Coran said and hummed in consideration. “Must have gotten quite a dose then. Well, no worries!” He shoved and the bed Shiro rested on rolled, leaving Shiro to grasp at the sides, trying to understand what was going on. He lay on a medical bed and as he tried to sit up Coran pushed his bed over until it pressed flush against Allura’s.

A second later the pain faded sharply, nearly disappearing. Shiro took a cautious breath and looked up to ask, “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

#

“And that’s why you don’t bring unknown botanical life onto the ship,” Coran finished, a few minutes later, with a chiding look at Lance. As near as Shiro understood it, the flower Lance had brought had released some kind of spores that reacted to Altean biology in…. uncomfortable ways. Allura’s unconsciousness was a normal symptom and so was the pain, spread to Shiro because he was the first person she touched after being exposed.

“Remember what I said,” Coran said, patting Shiro on the shoulder. “You’ll need to stay close for the next couple of days while the plant’s effects run their course. The closer the better, really! In fact, I’d recommend you touch as much as possible, for at least the first day. Trying to tough out the pain can lead to nerve damage for one or both of the individuals affected by the spores, and, before you think you should do it anyway, try to remember that Allura’s going to feel everything you do, understand?”

Coran dropped his cheer for a moment, looking deathly serious, and Shiro nodded, figuring that was enough. But Coran continued to stare at him, eventually clearing his throat pointedly, until Shiro reached out and touched Allura’s hand, ignoring the heat rising up the back of his neck the entire time.

Most of the remainder of the pain guttered out immediately, though a thread of it still remained. And better yet, Allura stirred on the cot, her eyes fluttering open as she regained consciousness. She blinked curiously up at Shiro, looked around the medical bay, and asked, “What happened?”

#

Shiro expected Allura to be more irritated by their forced closeness, but she seemed unbothered, threading her fingers through his when they walked out of the medical bay and leading him along, back to the bridge and the scans she’d been working on when Lance dropped her.

Shiro felt the tips of his ears burn and tried to convince himself to be professional. They were colleagues. Colleagues could hold hands for a couple of days without it being an issue.

It turned out colleagues could go to the bathroom together, as well, though it was significantly more uncomfortable and they bore the pain of not touching one another during the process. The pain lingered, after the separation, only slightly eased when Shiro grabbed Allura’s hand again. It didn’t fade back to manageable levels until she shuddered and moved closer, pressing up against his side and pushing her face against his shoulder for a long moment.

He felt knocked off balance, torn between wrapping an arm around her and keeping his hands to himself.

They ate together, as well, and it felt easy to just press his thigh against hers beneath the table, to free up both their hands.

And the night wore on. At some point Shiro wondered if they were just going to try to avoid sleep, smothering a yawn behind his hand. He was game to give it a try. They’d made it through the waking hours, but he felt unprepared to face Allura and a bed at the same time.

But that didn’t stop her from finally huffing at her computer screen, closing it, and declaring, “This is foolish. I’m exhausted. You’re obviously tired. We need to get some sleep. Anything could happen tomorrow.”

“Right,” Shiro said, around his dry tongue, “yes.”

“Right,” she repeated, and they stared at one another for a moment before she nodded decisively and tugged him to his feet. “Should we go to your room or my room?”

Shiro’s mind went unhelpfully blank. “Yours,” he said, finally, because at least that way his blankets and pillows wouldn’t smell torturously like her once this wore off.

“Excellent,” she said and dragged him down the hall.

They ended up not changing – probably for the best – and laying on opposite sides of Allura’s bed, their arms stretched out so they could hold hands. Shiro stared up at her ceiling, too aware of her breathing in the quiet, dark room, and worried about what would happen if they moved away from one another in the night, and, God, wanting—

Allura made a short, irritated sound. Shiro started to say, “What—” 

And never finished, because she squirmed across the mattress, settled against his side, her head pillowed on his shoulder, and said, “There. That’s better, isn’t it?”

Shiro said, “Yeah,” and winced, wishing he’d cleared his throat, or done something, anything else to ensure his voice didn’t come out so thick. “That’s. Nice.” He felt her hair tickling his neck and jaw. She smelled so good and she felt warm, deliciously warm, all the places she pressed against him. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit down hard on his bottom lip.

“Good,” she said and crept her arm out, until it stretched across his chest. “This is alright? You can sleep like this?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he lied, his voice still traitorously thick.

“Alright. Let me know if you’re uncomfortable,” she said, before falling quiet. He didn’t know how long they laid there, both of them obviously awake and pretending to sleep, but eventually the warmth of another body so close, and the smell of her skin, conspired against him and sent him down into the sweetest dreams he could ever remember having.

#

Shiro woke up with a problem. A big problem.

He froze as soon as wakefulness crept through his brain, memories of how he’d gone to sleep filtering through and shrieking in alarm. He’d fallen asleep with Allura tucked against his side, but they’d moved in the night. Now she lay inside the curve of his arm, her back pressed against his chest, her hair tangled all around his face. One of his legs had slid forward, atop one of hers.

And there was… the problem, too.

Shiro jerked away automatically, worried that she would suddenly wake up, fell off the bed, and the pain of the separation at least ensured that his problem disappeared immediately.

#

The second day proved easier than the first, at least as long as Shiro kept his thoughts away from how they’d woken up. They grew more comfortable with the necessity of touching. He pressed his hand to her lower back when they walked, she leaned against his back when they worked, and he hooked his foot around her calf when they went to eat.

Things might have been fine if Hunk hadn’t tripped and spilled a bowl of soup down Allura’s back.

“You need to shower,” Shiro said, full of dread, once Hunk stopped apologizing and they mopped up the worst of the mess. He stared at the far wall and tried to stop his imagination from doing anything.

“Er,” she said, tugging on her sodden clothes. “I could probably just change, really.”

“It’s in your hair, too,” Keith said, strolling by the table.

So Shiro ended up standing outside the shower, stretching one hand in to rest on Allura’s slippery wet shoulder while she washed off, his other hand fisted against his thigh and his jaw clenched shut so tight his teeth hurt.

“Could you hand me the towel?” she asked, eventually, and he fumbled around for it without looking.

“Thank you,” she said afterwards, combing out her hair while he leaned against her knee, trying to get his heartrate to slow down, “for not making that… weird.”

He nodded, “No problem. I know this is, well, awkward.”

She laughed a little and dropped a hand onto his shoulder, a casual touch that he wasn’t sure they would have shared the day before. She made a curious sound and squeezed a little before exclaiming, “You’re all twisted up!”

“Uh,” he said, with all the eloquence he could manage.

“This is terrible, are your shoulders like this all the time?”

“I guess?”

She made soft, displeased sound. “Would you like me to help?”

Shiro’s mind went blank. “Help?”

“I could massage them. Or… is that not something humans do?”

Nothing filled his head by white noise. “No,” he said, carefully. “We do that. You can—I mean, you don’t have to, there are, I don’t know if—”

“Would it make you feel better?” she interrupted, softly, and all he managed was a nod. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. It would keep her hands on him, though, either way. She shifted around behind him, moving until his shoulders fell between her calves and she could get both hands on his shoulders. She dug her thumbs into the knots of muscle, kneading with her clever fingers and Shiro groaned, dropping his head forward automatically to give her room to work. She made a faint, amused sound.

He lost track of time, all the tension in his neck slowly loosening as she worked, not arguing when she tugged him around so she could reach further down his back.

“We should get some rest,” she said, eventually, her hand pressed flat against his ribs.

“Yeah,” he agreed, drowsy and warm.

That night he didn’t bother to hover on one side of the bed. He rolled towards her and slung an arm around her waist and she sank back against him with a contented sigh and it was just to ease the pain, so that was alright.

#

They lived in each other’s pockets for three more days, and then one morning Allura rolled out of bed, stretched, and walked halfway across the room before she froze and looked over her shoulder, as though measuring the distance between them. “Oh,” she said, staring down at her hand. “I guess it… wore off?”

“Looks like,” Shiro agreed, tangled in her blankets and fighting to keep the disappointment off of his face.

“Well,” she said.

And he said, “I should get out of your hair, huh?”

And at the door, she called, “I’ll see you for breakfast?”

He nodded as he hurried away, desperate to go somewhere no one could see his face.

#

Everyone celebrated their recovery and Shiro tried to take it in good cheer. It was, of course, a good thing. They couldn’t very well be tied together for the rest of their lives. What would happen when he needed to go pilot his lion, for one thing? But it had been…

Nice.

Being touched.

Having something to touch.

He couldn’t remember the last time— 

But he cut that thought off. It was over. They were better now. Things were better now.

He repeated that in his head as he showered and got ready for bed that night, glaring belligerently at his empty sheets. He sat down hard on the edge of his bed and scowled at the wall, before flopping sideways and chiding himself for being ridiculous. He shoved a pillow under his head and shut his eyes with determination.

He missed the way she felt.

Frustrated, he rolled from bed once more and stalked towards the doorway. Maybe if he just distracted himself, went for a run or something, sleep would come easier. He stepped through his door and nearly ran right into Allura.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, her hand still raised to call upon him. “You’re awake!”

“So are you,” he replied and then felt like an idiot. “Is something wrong?”

She stared into his face for a moment and then looked to the side, the tips of her ears darkening. “No,” she said. “No, I’m sorry to bother you. I shouldn’t have come, I was just being—” She turned on her heel and Shiro reached out, catching her arm with all the easiness the last few days had fostered.

“Allura.” She looked up at him and he stared at his hand around her arm and thought he still felt better when touching her. He stroked his thumb across her skin and when she sucked in a tight little breath he skimmed his palm up her arm, unsure what he thought he was doing. “What did you need?”

Allura licked her lips and he watched the dart of movement, helplessly. “These last few days,” she started and moved, just a little bit, closer to him. “They’ve been—it’s been—” She cut off with a sharp, irritated sound and then tilted her chin up, the movement all determination. “I wanted to know if you, if you felt….” They’d shifted even closer, drawn together by something besides pain. Shiro could see the splay of her eyelashes against her skin, the softness of her mouth, and every color in her eyes.

“Safe to say I do, princess,” he whispered, low and hoarse, as he prayed he hadn’t misread her intentions.

“Oh,” she whispered, stunned, and swayed forward, one of her hands coming up to brush against his jaw as she stretched onto her toes. “Is this…?” She still sounded unsure, her words on his mouth.

And he cupped her cheek. And he kissed her.

And it didn’t hurt at all.


	5. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro walked through his town, amazed both by how little it had changed and how different it appeared. Had he known all these places so well, once upon a time? Had these towering apartment buildings and close packed shops seemed normal? None of it felt familiar, but he shook the discomfort away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this one was written for day 5 (for prompts Home and Parent). Set after the end of the war, when the Paladins get to go home and end up not receiving quite as warm a welcome as they hoped. Established Shallura relationship contained herein.

By the time they made it back to Earth four years had passed. It seemed strange, orbiting the blue-green globe and thinking about the stretch of four years of war, of pain, and of their eventual victory. Shiro stared down at the planet, his flesh hand pressed against the window, and glanced over when Allura stepped up beside him and snugged in against his side.

She looked different; they all did. Older. Harder in many ways, though not all of them. She still smiled the same way she had the first time they met. “Excited?” she asked, reaching out to tap the window. “The others are all off packing.”

“Yeah. I mean…” Shiro shrugged. “It’s been a long time.” Longer for him than any of the others. He shook the dark thoughts out of his head and straightened. This was a happy day, their homecoming, so sorely bought and long striven towards. “I can’t wait to show you the sights. There are some beautiful places down there.” He’d thought about taking her to his family’s home, so many times… And it seemed especially right to do it now. He dropped his hand to rest on the barely-there curve of her stomach and she stretched up to kiss his cheek.

“I can’t wait,” she said and he hummed, turning enough to kiss her properly.

#

They met down in the hangers, in front of Pidge’s lion, as she’d equipped it with all the best stealth technology. They’d be able to land on Earth without detection, hopefully. It seemed wisest to not throw the world immediately into the deep end of aliens existing, massive intergalactic wars, and everything else they’d run into over the last four years.

The other Paladins waited with bags over their shoulders. They all looked so differently than they had, last time they went Earthside. They all stood taller, for one thing. And they carried themselves differently, like soldiers, now. They’d assembled outfits that should pass alright on Earth, though none of their old clothes fit anymore, unless Pidge decided to steal something from Keith.

Lance had an arm around Keith’s shoulder, when Shiro and Allura approached, regaling Keith with family stories while Keith looked faintly nauseous with nerves. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran stood off in another group, bent over a digital map and hotly discussing something.

“Everyone ready?” Shiro asked as they strolled forward.

“Born ready,” Lance chirped, even as he tightened his grip around Keith’s neck, as though worried Keith would make a break for it. Shiro commiserated. The thought of re-meeting the family felt huge and full of an equal mix of anxiety and excitement, especially when you were planning to bring someone else along.

Coran cleared his throat, “I don’t know, I was thinking, maybe I should stay and watch over—”

“The war is over,” Allura cut him off, gently. “Come with us, Coran. Let’s see what our Paladin’s planet has to offer.”

“Well…” Coran sighed and glanced longingly at the map. “I suppose there’s no harm in a short visit.”

#

They broke atmosphere with no problem and Pidge steered them around the globe, dropping off Keith and Lance first. Keith shot a petrified look back over his shoulder as they prepared to disembark and Shiro smiled at him reassuringly, wondering if he’d ever stop worrying that everything with Lance was about to go terribly wrong.

Pidge took Shiro and Allura to their stop, next, and Shiro’s heart lodged firmly in his throat, even as Allura reached out and took his hand. She’d donned clothes that allowed her to pass as human, including a bandana around her head to disguise her ears. Nothing could be done about her eyes, but people wore all kind of crazy contact lenses. “Are you ready?” she asked.

He squeezed her hand and smiled down at her, “As I’ll ever be.”

And they stepped from the lion, leaving Pidge and the others to continue on their way with promises to stay in contact every three hours on the dot.

#

Shiro walked through his town, amazed both by how little it had changed and how different it appeared. Had he known all these places so well, once upon a time? Had these towering apartment buildings and close packed shops seemed normal? None of it felt familiar, but he shook the discomfort away.

He’d been gone a long time. The feelings were natural.

Allura, at least, seemed fascinated. She stared at everything they passed, asking questions softly about things she didn’t understand, even after they climbed into the cab that would take them out to his family’s old apartment.

They climbed out of the vehicle at the bottom of the apartment building and Shiro swallowed, looking up at it. Everyone thought he was dead. He’d been reported as KIA years ago, according to the records Pidge had mined while they waited above the planet. Maybe he shouldn’t—

Allura squeezed his hand and he remembered how to breathe. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

#

Shiro stood in front of his parent’s—his mother’s really, his father had died the year before, never knowing that Shiro lived–door and knocked, gripping Allura’s hand so hard he knew it had to hurt, even with her above-human strength. For a second he thought maybe no one was home, maybe—

And the door swung open.

And his mother stood there.

She blinked at his chest and then looked up, up into his face, and he watched her eyes grow wider and wet, all at once. She dropped the glass she held and it shattered around her feet. She reached out to hold herself up on the door frame and gasped, “You’re dead.”

Shiro shook his head, “No. I’m not. I’m sorry, I—”

His words cut off when she launched at him, hitting him in the center of his chest and throwing her arms around him, squeezing him tight.

#

Eventually, Shiro got his mother to calm down and they ended up sitting on familiar couches while he watched her pour tea. “I was told you were dead,” she said, without looking at him. “That you were killed on that exploratory mission.”

“No.” He took his cup when she handed it to him.

She nodded and poured another cup for Allura. “Then why was I not told?”

Shiro winced, regret for a thousand things thick in his throat. But he’d discussed this with Allura, on long sleepless nights in their bed. “It was… safer for you not to know. I’ve been on a dangerous assignment for the last four years.”

His mother hummed, still staring at her tea. “But it is finished now?”

“Yes.”

She shut her eyes and wetness clung to her eyelashes. She asked, her voice thick with sorrow, “And you were successful?”

“Yes.”

“And… your friend?”

“Oh.” Shiro’d almost forgotten, somehow. He turned to look at Allura, who looked perfect on his mother’s couch, holding a cup of tea, her other hand holding his, full of easy reassurance. His tongue only tangled for a moment. “I’m sorry. This is Allura. My wife.” Though their marriage had been certified by no other. They’d said their vows. That was all that mattered. Who else could judge them?

His mother’s cup rattled against the saucer, but at least she didn’t drop it. She stared back and forth between Allura and Shiro, and Shiro explained, “We met during the mission.”

His mother blinked and she asked, sounding lost, “A war bride?”

Shiro wanted to protest, that seemed an inaccurate way to describe what had happened between them, but perhaps it did encompass some of what they were. He only shrugged, in the end, and said, “She saved me.” Better his mother not ever know from what.

“Well,” his mother said, setting her tea cup gently on the table and standing. Allura and Shiro stood as well and his mother walked over, stood in front of Allura and squinted up into her face before smiling softly, and reaching out to embrace her. “Then I thank you. And I welcome you to our family, Allura.”

Shiro caught a glimpse of Allura’s expression, soft and broken, as she bent to return the embrace and he looked aside, feeling as though he’d intruded on something private.

#

His mother insisted on making dinner – all the foods that had been Shiro’s favorites, once, and that now tasted strange and unfamiliar. They ate, the conversation flowing choppily, marred by all the events Shiro couldn’t speak about, and then retired to his old room, preserved in perfect condition.

He lay on his mattress, curled towards Allura as she curled towards him, their knees pressed together as moonlight fell through his window and illuminated them. “Are you alright?” she asked, stroking her fingers back through his hair. 

Shiro nodded. “Yes. I just…” He sighed and moved closer, rearranging their positions so he fit behind her, his palm resting on her stomach. “It’s so different.”

“But good?” she asked, sliding her hand over his.

He nodded against the back of her neck. “But good.”

#

They stayed for a few days, checking in with the other groups every few hours, just as they’d agreed. Keith sounded giddy with relief the first time they spoke, so much so that he barely even made sense, repeating something about ‘so many people’ over and over again before Lance took over the communication. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. And it felt… good, to be home. To be with his mother again, even if he hated the way she teared up, sometimes, when she thought he wasn’t looking.

One evening he watched his mother and Allura as they sat together, looking through an old photo album, and listened to his mother haltingly try to describe his father and how much he would have liked Allura and how happy he would have been to see Shiro with a good woman, with a budding family of his own and he—

He locked the bathroom door, for a while, and splashed cold water over his face until the ache quieted.

#

On the third day, his mother sent him out to get groceries with a firm look while insisting that there were some things women needed to speak about alone. Shiro took the list with a laugh and made his way through town, lingering over the ripe fruits in grocery stalls and the bunches of freshly cut flowers.

When he had everything, he picked his way slowly back home, halfway there before his communicator buzzed at his hip.

They weren’t due for a check-in for a few hours, but they rarely let that stop them. He answered Pidge’s call with no apprehension at all and felt ice run down his spine when she said, immediately, “You need to get Allura off planet immediately.”

“What?” Shiro asked. “Why?”

Pidge made a tense, aggravated sound. “Because they took Coran.”

Shiro froze, adrenaline flooding into his blood. “Who? What’s going on, Pidge, talk to me.”

“I don’t know who, okay? I don’t—Hunk and I went out to a movie and Coran, he said he wanted to stay behind and look up—it doesn’t matter. We got back and someone knocked down the doors, Shiro. All the stuff is wrecked. There’s…” He heard her swallow. “There’s blood.”

Shiro dropped the bags in his arms and took off running, quick as a shot, shoving people out of his way, dodging around obstacles, unthinking. Pidge continued to talk against his ear, but he didn’t hear any of the words. He charged through the apartment building, whipped around the corner, and froze at the sight of his mother’s door, hanging off the hinges, suddenly aware of the sweat running down his face, of the burn in his thighs, of the panic in his head.

His mother came charging out the door, armed with a kitchen knife that she lowered immediately upon seeing Shiro. “Where is she?” Shiro demanded, pushing past her and stalking through the apartment in seconds. “Where’s Allura?”

“I don’t know,” his mother said, “I don’t know, they took her—”

Shiro grabbed her shoulder and demanded, “Who?”

“Men in black, they had masks, I tried to stop them,” she said, shaking and wild-eyed. “And she fought—she fought like a warrior, but...”

“But what?” Allura should have been able to take whatever humanity had to throw at her.

“They shot her.” Shiro’s stomach guttered out and he felt the world grind to a halt, barely improved when his mother clarified, “With some kind of dart. I don’t know. It knocked her out.”

“But she was alive?” he demanded, sucking in a shuddery breath.

His mother met his eyes and nodded, just once. “She lived.”

Shiro ran for the door without thinking about it, regretting, later, that he didn’t spend more time on a goodbye, but whatever drove him forward would not be denied. He called, over the communicator, “Pidge, did you get that?”

“I did,” Pidge replied.

Hunk cut in, “Uh, not to be really negative, but guys in black, with masks, I mean… Is anyone else thinking—”

“The Galaxy Garrison,” Shiro interrupted, banking down the anger in his gut enough to speak. “Yeah. Pidge, I need to you to come get us. I’ll contact Keith and Lance and let them know you’re coming. And then we’re going to go get our people back.”

#

“I did some poking around,” Pidge said without preamble, as Shiro climbed into her lion, “while coming to get you guys and there was some chatter on Garrison channels. It’s all encoded, but I’m working on it. Until then…” She looked up, her expression grim behind her glasses, “what’s the plan, exactly?”

“I mean,” Lance paced back and forth in the limited space, “do we think they’re still using the location where they held Shiro?”

“It’s as good a place to start as any,” Shiro decided. “Take us in, as fast as you can.”

#

They hit the Garrison base hard and fast, no longer the children they’d been last time, and they found nothing. Shiro knocked down a wall and stood panting over it, his hands balled up into fists, until Keith touched his shoulder and said, quietly, “We’re going to find them.”

Shiro nodded. God, he hated the taste of failure.

#

It took them two days of hitting Garrison bases and digging through communications until Pidge made a victorious sound. “What is it?” Keith demanded, leaning over her shoulder until she pushed him back.

“Communications. A ton of them. Apparently they picked up the City of Lions as we approached Earth. They didn’t know what it was…” She trailed off.

“Did they try to attack the city?” Lance asked.

“Don’t think so. But they have sent people up to monitor it. And they tracked our landing.” She turned away from the screen with wide eyes. “They watched us. It look like they, they identified us, but not Allura or Coran, so they…”

“They took them,” Hunk finished. She nodded.

Shiro stared straight ahead. “Do you know where?”

Pidge turned to type on the computer again. “I think so.”

“How soon can we be there?” Shiro bit out and Pidge glanced up at him, dark circles beneath her eyes. None of them had slept.

“Give me two hours.”

#

The base saw them coming, but had no defenses, anyway, not even to match a single lion. Pidge dropped the rest of them off close to the main building and then took off in her lion to take care of the big guns and ensure that no reinforcements bothered them. Shiro led the way into the building – tucked into the side of a mountain – his artificial hand tingling.

They dispatched the guards they came to, carving their way down halls, through heavy doors that stood no chance against Shiro’s hand, until they came to a hall lined with locked doors, each with a number painted on the front and a small window. “Find them,” Shiro barked, peering in windows as he sprinted down the hall, his mind all a blur, until—

He found Allura in a room halfway down the hall. They had her strapped down to some kind of bed, with heavy, thick restraints. They’d put her in hospital scrubs and left her bare feet exposed to the air. Her eyes were shut and an I.V. stuck in her arm, dripping something into her blood stream. A dozen monitors stood around her, cords winding up her sleeves or into her hair or under the waist of her shirt.

Shiro called, “I found Allura. Find Coran.” And he reached out, slicing the door apart and batting it aside. He stepped over it, not breathing until he tucked his fingers against Allura’s throat and felt her pulse, slow but there. “Oh, princess,” he panted, tearing the wires away from her, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, can you wake up for me?” He bent the I.V. tube closed and pulled the needle from her arm. She didn’t stir.

Nor did she move when he scooped her off the bed, no matter how he cajoled. He stepped back into the hall in time for Hunk to yell, “Hey, I got Coran!”

“Good.” Shiro breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Coran looked just as bad as Allura, gray-pale and limp. “Let’s get out of here. Pidge?”

“Waiting for you,” Pidge called back. “Could you hurry it up a little? It’s getting kind of hairy out here.”

#

They blew atmo five minutes later, dodging around the ships that tried to meet them in orbit, and making directly for the City of Lions. “What do we do now?” Lance demanded as Pidge landed them. “Should Keith and I…?” He gestured towards the red and blue lions, apparently ready to go fight their own.

Shiro shook his head, already moving towards the bridge as fast as he could. “No. We’re getting out of here. Take Coran to the medical bay,” he ordered, still at a run, his pulse humming along like electricity beneath his skin.

“Where are you going?” Lance asked. “Allura needs some help, too.”

Shiro knew. But. “She needs to get us out of here, first,” he called and left them behind.

Allura stirred in his arms, either waking at his words or from the jostling. She raised one of her hands, turned her head against his shoulder, made a soft, questioning sound, and then slurred, “Shiro…? Is that – are you…?”

“Sh,” he hushed her. “It’s me. I’ve got you.”

She managed to lift her hand far enough to twist her fingers into the front of his shirt. She tried to lift her head and didn’t manage it as she rasped, “Coran, I saw Coran, we have to—”

“He’s safe,” Shiro assured her, “we have him.”

She made a low sound and went limp again. He tightened his grip and murmured, “Hey, hey, stay with me, Allura, I need you to stay with me, can you do that?”

She nodded and her voice sounded watery when she said, “Yes. Of course.” Something wet soaked through his shirt and his heart clenched like a fist inside his chest. He stretched his legs further, slid into the bridge, and carried her to the pilot podium. He tried to lower her to her feet and her knees sagged; he held her up instead, and her fingers scrambled for purchase across his chest.

“Sh,” he shushed, taking one of her hands and placing it on the controls. “Can you – can you get us out of here?”

She lifted her head and blinked at him with bleary eyes. Tears tracked silently down the line of her nose. “I’m very tired.”

He cupped her cheek, hating that he had to ask this of her, but none of the rest of them could do it. “I know, princess, I know you are. But only you can do this. Please. We have to go.” No one from Earth would be able to follow them after a jump. They’d be safe. “It doesn’t have to be far. Please.”

“But…” She gazed around the ship, her eyes not focusing on anything. What had they given her? He’d kill—She licked her lips. “But, Earth? It’s your planet.” She sounded honestly confused.

“It is. And now we need to leave it.” He slid his palm back against the hinge of her jaw and bent closer, pressing his forehead against hers. “Please, princess. It’s important.”

“Alright,” she said, nothing but trust in her eyes when she looked at him, and how could she trust him, still, when he’d allowed this to happen to her? She flailed out her other hand and he helped her reach the controls. She tried to straighten up and couldn’t.

“It’s okay,” he babbled, supporting her weight, feeling her tremble. “It’s okay, you can do it.”

And she jerked as a wormhole opened in front of them.

She sighed softly, afterwards, and her knees gave completely. Shiro held her as she sagged, scooping her back up and turning to carry her back to the medical bay, before he even looked to see where she’d brought them. Earth couldn’t get them, now.

#

Both Allura and Coran shook off their ailments quickly, once the drugs flushed out of their systems. Shiro checked on them, over and over, itchy with the thought that they’d disappear if he took his eyes off of them for too long.

He walked as close as Allura’s shadow, when she felt well enough to leave, following her back to their quarters and into their bed where he finally wrapped around her and held her tight, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his face against her shoulder. “It’s alright,” she said, curling an arm around his head and stroking his hair. “Shiro, it’s alright.”

Shiro nodded. He knew. But. Holding her felt necessary, anyway. So he did, until she cleared her throat and said, “I wanted you to know that I’m well enough to return you to,” she winced, just slightly, “Earth.”

Shiro drew back to ask, aghast, “What?”

Allura turned a little and stared up at the ceiling. “I know how much you want to go home. All of you. You’ve waited such a long time and you have every right to—”

Shiro sat up, no less horrified than he’d been a moment before. “Do you think I’d go back there, after what they did to you?”

Allura glanced to the side, smoothing a palm over her stomach and then jerking it away, her voice had gone distant and diplomatic, “While their actions were unfortunate, I know how much Earth means to you and—”

He shook his head and moved to lean over her, sliding his hand back to cup her face, unable to bear the thought of her continuing to misunderstand. “I don’t care about Earth,” he told her, and she looked at him, her eyes gone wide and shocked.

“But, it’s your home.”

“No. It’s not.”

Her wide eyes shimmered and she reached out, almost touching his cheek before she hesitated. “Shiro…” 

He forged ahead, “My home is here, now.” She made a pained sound and her fingers slid across his cheek. He instinctively turned his face into the touch; her fingers felt so warm. “With you.” She sucked in a breath. “Maybe it always has been. And there’s—there’s a whole galaxy out there that could use our help. Or we can just take a break. I don’t care. You decide, I just want….”

He closed the distance between them, intending the kiss to be soft and sweet, but his emotions felt too ragged, still, and maybe hers did as well, because she tightened her grip and dragged him closer, and down, tilting her head to deepen the kiss.

Shiro gripped her back, holding onto home with everything he had.


	6. Like a Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They’re trials,” Shiro reminded, burning hot beneath the heavy plate armor he’d found himself in. His arms ached from swinging the blade he held, and from the two previous trials they’d already been through. The priestess had agreed to help them, but only if they proved themselves worthy by successfully completing a series of trials, each one drawn from their minds in some mystic way or the other. He grunted, caught a blow with his shield, and said, “And does it really matter who came up with this one?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the final entry to Shallura week for me! Written for the Fantasy prompt. This is set is some ambiguous time-frame and involves a silly trial that the Paladins + Allura are going through to get some help. Pre-Shallura. No warnings. Short.

“What I’d like to know,” Hunk panted, leaning heavily on his heavy wooden staff for a moment, “is whose brain is responsible for this, um, what did the priestess lady call them again?”

“Hallucinations?” Lance suggested, then dodged around a giant, grey monster, leapt on it, and did something terribly quick with the two daggers he held that led to the monster toppling over onto its face.

“No,” Hunk swung his staff and knocked down a monster. “Pretty sure that wasn’t it.”

“They’re trials,” Shiro reminded, burning hot beneath the heavy plate armor he’d found himself in. His arms ached from swinging the blade he held, and from the two previous trials they’d already been through. The priestess had agreed to help them, but only if they proved themselves worthy by successfully completing a series of trials, each one drawn from their minds in some mystic way or the other. He grunted, caught a blow with his shield, and said, “And does it really matter who came up with this one?”

“Yes,” Hunk insisted. “Like, these are orcs. We’re fighting orcs. Which one of us subconsciously wants to grab a bunch of weapons and fight orcs? It is vital that I know this. I mean, mine was just—”

“Less talking,” Pidge chirped from her perch above them; she’d scrambled up a tree when the orcs appeared and began snapped off arrows immediately. “More fighting. There are more of them coming, and, uh…”

“What, Pidge?” Keith asked, parrying a blow, striking one of his own, and trying to shake sweat from his eyes.

Whatever Pidge’s reply would have been, a tremendous, ear-splitting roar swallowed it up.

Shiro turned towards the sound, and Allura – missing since they’d started this particular trial – yelled, “Paladins!” from the same direction as the roar.

“That can’t be good,” Keith offered, just as another furious roar ripped through the air, stretching on and on and on.

As it ended, Shiro realized that Allura had been shouting the whole time. They only caught “—help!”

Pidge rolled her eyes and hopped down from the tree. “There you go, Hunk. This is Lance’s.”

“What?” Lance protested, barely avoiding a blow from a furious orc as they began fighting their way towards the roars and, apparently, Allura. “No, this isn’t me. Mine was the last one, you know, with the lasers and—”

“We know,” the rest of them chorused in unison, and then Shiro led the charge into a clearing, just as the sky overhead darkened. He looked up and gaped at gigantic dragon, covered in menacing gray-black scales, with flaming red eyes, that circled the clearing once, snorted, and then drew in a deep breath before belching a gigantic fountain of flame directly at them.

Shiro’s shield seemed suddenly insufficient. He spread his arms to try to protect the others, winced, and—

And a blur jumped in front of him and resolved itself into Allura. She stared directly into the fire, one of her arms extended out. She held a wand tightly in her hand and light sprang from it, forming a shield across all of them that dispersed the flames harmlessly. She wore a long robe of iridescent blue with finely crafted pieces of silver armor overtop, fitted around her chest and back and down her arms. Her hair twisted into intricate braids.

She turned towards them, revealing the crown woven into her hair and a fierce expression as she chided, “I told you to wait for me to come and help!”

“Oh, well,” Pidge said, quietly behind Shiro’s shoulder, “guess we know who this belongs to, after all.”

“Yeah.”

“Yup.”

“Should have known.”

Shiro shook sense back into his head, tore his gaze away from Allura, and asked, “Huh? What?” But the dragon gave them no time to discuss it. And there were orcs to fight, besides. By the time the trial ended, he’d forgotten all about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed one or more of these entries! Shallura Week was good fun and this fandom seems like a blast! I have a tumblr (over [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/andtheblueberrymuffin)) that's prone to including fic stuff, art, and random other stuff. I don't bite if you wanna come say hey.


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